Bruce George MP who has been most critical about the way in which Walsall Council have misused public money on programmes to deal with poverty, firing loyal staff who then took them to an Employment Tribunal which the Council lost. This cost the Walsall Council tax payer a great deal of money.

Bruce George said “The Council use every effort to prevent their failures from becoming public knowledge by hauling up the white flag of surrender just a few hours before a hearing at an Employment Tribunal.

I am not discussing the merits of the latest case of a former employee namely Mr Carl Teesdale. However, after each failed case the Council promised that they would learn their lesson on how to more sensitively deal with employees grievances. Regrettably, the same mistakes appear to recur indicating that lessons have not been learnt and the assurances given have not been met.

A number of different and separate Tribunal cases have been launched in response to Mr Teesdale’s allegations on grounds of disability discrimination, unfair dismissal, whistle blowing and non payment of holiday pay.

These cases promise to be lengthy and very costly to all concerned. I politely suggest to them that should they fail to win yet a further case in which enormous sums of public funding may have to be paid then I shall request an enquiry by suitably qualified and absolutely independent legal specialist to examine the decisions made by Walsall Council in challenging cases of David Parish, Peter Francis, Mark Kemp, Liz McDonald and now Carl Teesdale. There may well be more.

The Council appears to me to need to seek advice from other local authorities on how they respond to employees grievances.

Walsall Council must get its act together and stop wasting council tax payers money in this way and exposing itself to public ridicule.”